American Indian Reflections: November 2005 Archives

The Story: "When gold was discovered in Colorado in 1858, it resulted in a long stream of gold diggers with families going to the Rockies. This led to serious white encroachments on Cheyenne lands. To give protection to the white settlers, Fort Bent at Arkansa river got transferred into a military post, and was renamed to Fort Lyon. About 30 miles north to the fort in the inhospitable arias where the wide spread  prairie meet the Rocky Mountains, a small southern Cheyenne band  used to have their wintercamp on a  place called "Sand Creek". Their chief was Black Kettle.

Black Kettle was promised that his people would be left in peace as long as they stayed out of trouble. Black Kettle assured them that his people didn´t want any wars, all they wanted was to live in peace. He also believed that the white man and the Indians could coexist with each other.

On November 28 1864 Col. John.M.Chivington led his troup of volunteers to Sand Creek, and on the dawn of November 29 the troups had reached the sleeping Indian camp. One of the Indian women had heard the horses and sound the alarm, but Black Kettle told his people not to worry since the white officers at Fort Lyon had promised them protection. So he put up the American flag on the top of his tent to announce that this was a peacful and friendly camp.

But when the cavalry started to ride down the ridge towards the camp Black kettle realized that this wasn´t a friendly visit. Then the shooting started, the Indians were in panic, the soldiers indiscriminately killed women and children. Black Kettle who belived his people were under peace protection was helpless as his people were massacred. Over 200 Cheyenne died in this slaughter, about 75 of them where warriors the rest were mostly elderly men, women and children.

After the massacre Chivington returned to Denver where he bragged about how he fought and won the battle with the Cheyenne, and in a theatre he put up about 100 scalps to proof his victory. Black Kettle survived the massacre but was killed four years later by the 7th U.S cavalry at the Washita River."

Source is a web site of Native American History,  it seems to be an individual effort.

This is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the annual Day of Mourning on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.  I was there in 1970, and while I have returned on many occasions, I have been there in spirit and solidarity every year.  It is hard to witness the fact of genocide in face of the national ritual of self congratulations and privilege.  But there are signs that more and more dominant culture people are willing to look at there past to help them understand the violence and arrogance of the present regime.  If one wants to understand Bush and Cheney one must look back to opening chapters of the European settlement of the Americas.  What was the first act of those who arrived on the Mayflower?  Upon arriving at what is now Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod, a boat of armed men was sent ashore who stole the entire winter food supply of the village of Native people.  Then they proceeded to what is now Plymouth where the people of God founded their armed and aggressive Bible commonwealth.  The children of the Mayflower (joined by those who aspire to that heritage) now use their power to steal the natural resources of the entire world.

Robert Jensen writes:  "Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers. 
The first president, George Washington, in 1783 said he preferred buying Indians' land rather than driving them off it because that was like driving "wild beasts" from the forest. He compared Indians to wolves, "both being beasts of prey, tho' they differ in shape."
Thomas Jefferson -- president #3 and author of the Declaration of Independence, which refers to Indians as the "merciless Indian Savages" -- was known to romanticize Indians and their culture, but that didn't stop him in 1807 from writing to his secretary of war that in a coming conflict with certain tribes, "[W]e shall destroy all of them." 
As the genocide was winding down in the early 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt (president #26) defended the expansion of whites across the continent as an inevitable process "due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct, and which by their expansion are gradually bringing peace into the red wastes where the barbarian peoples of the world hold sway." Roosevelt also once said, "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth." 

Jensen argues that those who overcome this legacy must join the witnesses on Copes Hill, and make the fourth Thursday in November into a day of awareness and renewal, by taking stock of the genocide that is foundational to the national history.

So let us  celebrate and feast, with awareness of our history and a commitment to transformation.

"And this day shall become a memorial for you, and you shall observe it as a festival for the LORD, for your generations, as an eternal decree shall you observe it. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove the leaven from your homes ... you shall guard the unleavened bread, because on this very day I will take you out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day for your generations as an eternal decree. - Exodus 12:14-17

Religions mark rituals of reference. remembering events that define the identity of the people.  Often these rituals of reference mark memories of suffering, enslavement, humiliation, and then liberation and renewal.  Christianity has the Passion which is answered by the Resurrection marked by Good Friday and Easter.  Judaism has an ancient memory of slavery and a subsequent passing over to freedom,  ritually celebrated at Passover.  Judaism returns to this theme again and again in other rituals of reference such as Purim and Chanukah.

Many Native American communities recall the long marches of forced removals with rituals of reference.  It is a scandal among indigenous peoples that dominant culture spiritual seekers come to celebrate Native American spirituality,  because they seem in such a rush to be one with nature, and one with the dance,  but clueless about the suffering and brokenness that the rituals seek to address.

The spirituals of the African American people arose to address terror and degradation.  Slavery and after emancipation Lynch Law are the context for these songs of freedom.  When religious liberals sing these songs, what suffering are they addressing?    When we sing that we will let our light shine,  what long nights of terror are we defying.  What horrors do we wish to overcome?  If we sing these songs with out deep congregational reflection on the context of their origins, and recognition that for the community of origin they are rituals of reference are we not celebrating cheap grace?

When questions of cultural misappropriation are raised around the singing of African American spirituals, it is not simply a concern that "white people don't clap on the right beat" or "y'all don't sing with gusto and passion" - the concern is taking a song that has context in community memories and represents a ritual of reference in the African American community,  and seems to be used for some other purpose in the liberal congregation.  Much of the writing on this subject by dominant culture ministers and musicians appears to be defensive and more concerned with rights, than with responsibilities.

Appropriate use requires communicating the context under which the song arose and the meaning in depth for the community of origin.  In that context that the singing of such music would contribute toward our common struggle for wholeness and right relations.

In 1822, the United States invited a delegation of the Osage people to visit Washington, D.C., the government sought to woo and wow these people from the where the Ozarks meet the Plains with the glitz and glory of white man's civilization. Akidatonka (which was mistranslated into English as "Big Soldier")* saw what there was to see and shared these perceptions with the Indian Agent who interviewed him when he returned to his homelands.


I see and admire your manner of living, your good warm houses, your extensive corn-fields, your gardens, your cows, oxen, work-horses, wagons, and a thousand machines that I know not the use of; I see that you are able to clothe yourselves, even from weeds and grass. In short, you can do almost what you choose. You whites possess the power of [subduing] almost every animal [to your] use. You are surrounded by slaves. Everything about you is in chains, and you are slaves yourselves. I fear if I should exchange my pursuits for yours, i too should become a slave. Talk to my sons; perhaps they may be persuaded to adopt your fashions, or at least recommend them to their sons; but for myself, I was born free, was raised free, and wish to die free. . . I am perfectly contented with my condition.

Story cited in Spirit and Resistence: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation

* there are no soldiers in Osage society, the whole male population was responsible for defense of the community, Akidatonka is better translated as "large man who watches over the community."

George Tinker begins his book Spirit and Resistence: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation with this observation:

"In 1803, the United States purchased the entirety of Osage land - from France. Osages yet today are trying figure that one out. It had to do with something called the Louisiana Purchase and something to do with with some obscure european legal doctrine called the "right to discovery." What it ever had to do with the Osage people, who were never privy to his doctine or included in the negotiation leading to the purchase, is still a mystery."

Theologians deal with mysteries, and to the indigenous people of this land, the presenting mystery by which they judge Christianity is their conquest and the lies and deceptions that the conquering people have told themselves about that conquest. For Native peoples being conquered by people with no respect for the truth and no respect for history is the stuff of theological reflection. Tinker is emerging as the theologian of liberation for indigenous peoples, "he probes American Indian culture, its vast religious and cultural legacy, and its ambiguous relationship to the tradition-historic Christianity-that colonized and converted it".

In a previous work, Missionary Conquest Tinker explored the history of Christianity relative to the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island (North America.) Conversion was conceived as a way of turning native peoples into clones of Europeans culturally, spiritually, and economically. Now the books publishers ask "after five hundred years of conquest and social destruction, he says, any useful reflection must come to terms with the political state of Indian affairs and the political hopes and visions for recovering the health and well-being of Indian communities." Can dominant culture Christian theology provide any answers to the problems that the missionary conquest have wrought?

Not without a complete overhaul, and Tinker precedes to deconstruct some of the sacred cows of dominant culture Christian theology. Tinker is critical of recent liberal and New Age co-opting of Native spiritual practices, Tinker also offers a critical corrective to [South American] liberation theology. He shows how Native insights into the Sacred Other and sacred space helpfully reconfigure traditional ideas of God, Jesus' notion of the reign of God, and our relation to the earth. From this basis he offers novel proposals about cultural survival and identity, sustainability, and the endangered health of Native Americans."۬
Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Liberal Liberation by۬George E. "Tink" Tinker is Professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at Iliff School of Theology, Denver, Colorado. He is an enrolled member of the Osage Nation. Among his many publications are Missionary Conquest (Fortress Press, 1993) and Native American Theology (co-authored, 2001).

There are Kanjobal Indian refugees living in near me in Indiantown, Florida.  They have fled from Guatemala to Florida seeking asylum.  (See below for more information.)  I have a previous entry on the Maya, as does Hafidha Sofia.

My poor, poor country
people trying to escape
not knowing what direction
all points look the same
the boom of the bombs
drives them
c
r
a
z
y
Planes flying over sad
towns throwing bombs
on innocent people
Poor, sad, sad people
destroyed by the arms
of rich countries
and though
gentle,
have served the killers
Oh sorrow, sorrow, sorrow
LAND OF THE QUETZAL
By Jose Lows Perez-Aguirre
16-year-old Mayan refugee boy in Florida
Guatemala,
land of corn
of wheat
which feeds your impoverished children.
Oh Guatemala beautiful land
land of the hormigo
musical tree
of which your children
have created
the marimba
marimba of the sweet notes
which resound in the Huehueteca
Mountains
where the quetzal cries bitterly
seeing your children
banished
by the stranger.
Your children set on the rocks
where, unfortunately
you cannot feed them
While the cruel strangers
exploit your children
and enjoy
your riches.

Boothby, Neil writes:

As Kanjobal Indians, direct descendants of the ancient Mayan civilization, "the struggle," as the elder chose to call it, has indeed been a long one. IN 1524 A.D., Spanish officials arrived in Guatemala and set in motion a 450-year era of exploitation. In the absence of rich gold and silver deposits, Indians bore the burden of Spain's colonizing efforts, working as virtual slaves on their buildings, cities and roads. Native states were dismembered and Indians concentrated into local communities tightly controlled by Crown officials and priests. Exhaustive labor incarceration and disease leveled the indigenous population to less than 40 percent of its preconquest total. The ensuing colonial period and even Guatemala's own independence in 1821 did little to change the plight of the Maya. Expropriation of communal lands, debt bondage, vagrancy laws and the absence of meaningful land reform in this century have left Guatemala's indigenous people impoverished.

Today I spoke to a Garden Festival at the Treasure Coast Unitarian Universalist Church in Stuart, Florida. There were Master Gardeners, and two specialists from the University of Florida, artisans selling garden pottery, and stainglass plus several larger vendors selling flowers. People from the community came and visited our grounds looking for flowers to plant in their gardens this winter. I spoke, I felt sadden by my subject. It was a beautiful day. A great day for a garden festival.

I said:
This is the land of Ais, known to the the first Europeans as the Indians of the coast. They were a tall, healthy people who fished along the inlets, and rivers and planted crops. What we now call the Indian River was once known as River of Ais. There were 25000 Ais living here when the Spanish came in 1513. By 1610 the last Ais was dead. The Spanish enslaved the Ais people, and disease, forced labor, and the violence of oppression overcame an ancient community of fishers, growers and manufacturers. They built houses, including civic houses, developed manufacture of baskets, pottery, cooking ovens, colored woven clothing, and jewelry. They practiced settled agriculture.

To the people of this land the world was "alive with spirit." The animals and plants were relatives, and all the creatures lived together in one family under the loving care of our mother earth and our father sky - the earth world was a sacred realm in which people lived, and moved and had their being. They celebrated the earth. The people of this land spoke to animals, and sang to the plants. Dances celebrated planting and tending of plants. They told stories of each of the plants that sustained them in every day of their lives.

They found the world as a blessing. It was intregal to their lives to live in harmony with the world. Music and dance were an central part of the Ais everyday life, but these enchanting sounds and graceful movements were lost along with the people themselves. We have only tiny glimpses into that culture, such as the use of gourds for rattles, a drum created by beating on a large rock with a club, and flutes made from reed, cane or bark. The women were reported to have donned shell belts, formed themselves into a large circle, and danced with a side stepping motion around a central fire at a certain ceremony whose meaning is now lost. Based on knowledge of other communities we can assume it was a celebration of the renewal of the plants that they grew. These people are lost, however, we can imagine the haunting sound of those tinkling shells in the night.

These are the crops grown by the Ais for thousands of years before Columbus.

· maize · gourd · beans · citrons · squash · sunflowers pumpkins

Wild Plants Collected for food, baskets, fishing gear, clothing, housing.

· acorns · palm berries · smartweed · hickory nuts · wild cherries · plums · persimmon· bullrush · blackberries · blueberries nut sedge elderberries huckleberries· buttonbush peppervine poke weed watershield ground cherries amaranth · sea grapes bristlegrass broomgrass coco plums
· spatterdock cattail coontie · yucca ache prickley pear cabbage palm· morning glory sea oats water lily· saw palmetto
· goosefoot rivercane yaupon

The native people lived in relation with this land. Some people will say the Ais were animists, that they pre-modern, and superstitious. I am not impressed with such ideas.

I believe that they lived with wisdom, a wisdom that arose from their relationship to the earth, a wisdom that allowed them to relate to the storms and the rains and the dry times as well. For us in this beginning of a new millenium, we need to ask does are present way of living with this land, shows the wisdom that sustained the Ais, who resided here and sustained the environment for over six thousand years.

Today you will be hearing much discussion of native plants, and how much less intrusive these plants are to the Florida environment. I believe there is wisdom in cultivating native plants. I think they might also teach us about living in this place, this land of the Ais.